Edit PDF text, signatures and forms in your browser
Paperweight is a free PDF editor that runs entirely inside your browser tab. It changes the text already on the page, removes or adds signatures, fills in forms and reads scanned pages. There is no server to upload to, no account to make, and nothing to pay.
- Nothing leaves this device
- No sign-up
- Free
Starting the editor…
Your file is opened here, on this device, and is never sent anywhere. Nothing is kept between visits unless you save it yourself.
- Nothing is uploaded
- No server, no upload path. The browser test suite fails if any cross-origin request is made while a document is open.
- No account
- Nothing to sign up for. Preferences and any signatures you save stay in this browser.
- No watermark, no quota
- Every page, every day, at full quality. There is no paid tier.
- Open source
- PDFium under BSD-3-Clause, tesseract.js under Apache-2.0, the app itself on GitHub.
What Paperweight does
Eleven tools, named here exactly as they are named on the buttons.
Edit text
Click a line and retype it. The font the document already uses is reused when it has the letters; otherwise a close match is used and a badge says so.
Signature
Remove a signature that is an annotation, a signature field or an image on the page. Add one by drawing, typing or uploading.
Fill in forms
Click a field to type into it, tick boxes, choose options. Widen a field when a value will not fit.
Also in the toolbar
Add text
Place a new line of text anywhere on the page.
Mark
Put a cross, tick, ring, dot or rule on a checkbox that is printed rather than a real field.
Cover
Hide content under an opaque patch. The content stays in the file, so this is not redaction.
Image
Place a picture on the page.
Select
Move or delete text and images.
Read this page
Recognise the text on a scanned page, on this device, then patch a line by covering it and drawing over it. A labelled patch, not an edit.
Pages
Rotate a page, insert a blank one after it, delete it, or save it as its own PDF, from the thumbnail rail.
Print and save
Print with your changes. Save over the original in Chromium browsers; download a copy elsewhere.
How Paperweight works
Three steps, and nothing between them reaches a network.
Open
Drop a PDF onto the page or choose one. It is read by PDFium, compiled to WebAssembly and running in a worker inside this tab.
Edit
Click text to change it, a field to fill it, a signature to remove it. Every change is shown for what it is: a font substitution, a patch on a scan, a covered area.
Save or print
Save over the original, download a copy, or print. Only the pages you touched are rewritten; the rest of the file passes through unchanged.
Where your file goes
No server, no upload, no analytics, no cookies. Your preferences and any signatures you save live in this browser and never leave it. The security policy shipped with the site is that promise stated as a header: every origin it permits is this one, so a document opened here cannot be sent anywhere, even by an injected script.
Two ways to build a PDF editor
Scroll the table sideways to see both columns.
| Aspect | Paperweight | An editor that uploads |
|---|---|---|
| Where the file is opened | In this tab, by PDFium compiled to WebAssembly. | On a machine you do not control, once a copy has been transmitted to it. |
| Who else ends up with a copy | Nobody. There is no server to hold one. | The service and its host, for as long as their retention policy says. |
| What a breach there would expose | Nothing of yours. The document never left. | Whatever had been uploaded and not yet deleted. |
| What it costs | Nothing, with no account and no limit. | Commonly a free tier with a daily task limit, then a subscription. |
Questions people ask
Answered here in full, on the page, so no answer has to be expanded, clicked through or taken on trust.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. There is no server behind this page: the editor is a folder of static files and the PDF engine runs in your browser. Nothing is sent, logged or analysed. The site refuses connections to any other origin, and the browser tests assert zero cross-origin requests while a document is open.
Is it free? Is there a watermark, a quota or an account?
Free, with no account, no watermark, no page limit and no tasks-per-day quota. There is no paid tier.
Can it edit the text already in a PDF, and in which font?
Yes. Click a line and retype it. The font embedded in the document is reused when it has the glyphs. Embedded fonts are usually subsets, so when it does not, a metric-compatible Liberation face is substituted and a badge tells you. Edits are line-scoped: PDF has no paragraphs, so a longer line is condensed, then shrunk, rather than reflowed.
Can it remove a signature? What about digital signatures?
It removes signatures that are annotations, signature form fields or images on the page, taking them out of the file rather than painting over them. A signature inside a scanned image cannot be removed, and the app says so. A digital (cryptographic) signature certifies the exact bytes of the original, so any edit invalidates it; you are told when the document opens.
Can it fill in PDF forms?
Yes. Click a field to type, tick a box or pick an option. Values are committed through the form itself, so the filled form prints correctly and other software can still read the values. A field clips to its own box; a value that would not fit can be widened, or drawn as page text with the trade-off stated.
Can it edit a scanned PDF?
A scan has no text, only pixels. Paperweight can read a scanned page on this device (English) with a confidence score per line, and replace a line by covering it and drawing new text on top. That is a patch, not an edit: the original pixels stay in the image and the result never matches the original typeface.
Does Cover redact?
No. Cover draws an opaque rectangle over content; the content underneath stays in the file and can still be extracted. Paperweight does not offer redaction and reserves the word for real content removal.
Which browsers can save over the original file?
Saving in place uses the File System Access API, which exists in Chromium browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Brave and Opera. In Firefox and Safari the button reads Download and produces a copy. Everything else works in current versions of all of them.
Does it work offline?
Yes, after the first visit. The app keeps itself in your browser: the page, the interface and the PDF engine are cached on that first load, so it opens and edits documents with no network at all, and it can be installed to a home screen or launcher and used like any other app. Two things are fetched when you first need them and kept from then on: the fonts used for substituted text and typed signatures, and the model that reads scans. Everything comes from this site, so there is nothing else to fetch and nowhere else for it to go.
What is it built on, and is the source available?
PDFium (BSD-3-Clause) compiled to WebAssembly and run in a Web Worker, tesseract.js (Apache-2.0) for reading scans, React and Next.js as a static export. The source is on GitHub at kimbelas/paperweight, under the MIT licence.
What Paperweight will not do
Stated here rather than discovered later. Each one is a decision, not a gap waiting to be filled.
- Text edits are line-scoped and never reflow, because PDF has no paragraph model.
- Text inside a form XObject is redrawn at page level rather than edited in place.
- Scanned pages are patched, not edited, and a patch never matches the original type.
- Reading a scan is English only.
- Nested images and shapes cannot be moved, only nested text.
- Editing a digitally signed document invalidates the signature.
- Saving over the original file is Chromium-only; elsewhere you get a copy.
- Cover hides content, it does not redact it.